Imagine, if you will, that the industrial revolution occured decades before the apocalypse, only to be picked back up a century later amongst the pieces of a broken world. Sordid Dystopia is a post-industrialist and vaguely post-apocalyptic game set in a low-fantasy world, where the public, concerned mostly about their social and economic livelihood, are blissfully ignorant to the inhuman eyes that watch from their shadows. Written by Nathan Knapp, Sordid Dystopia is the flagship game for the TOPIA engine.

Following some scandal and controversy upon The Scaly Wench, the crew of the Duquetimme has swapped the paranoid Avent Martell for a crew member with a different position entirely. A variety of positions, one could say.

Leon Donnelly, the aggressor of the controversy, has new duties relating to this new crewmember. Namely, making sure that she avoids all of the positions she had on her previous vessel, in addition to all of his regular navigation duties.

Up in the crow’s nest, away from all of these ship politics, Marshall Yaeger sees a land mass unknown by the navigation crew or any maps from the Vontais people. It’s far too early to have reached the island of choice to the Poulin Trading Company. What could possibly lie in store?

Located in the center of a great river that flows from the mountains of New Xexoria is the small mining village of Grikafa. Almost every person who lives here is in debt to the Algeaz Mineral Company, who owns the entire town. Cautious of racking up more debt and thankfully devoid of crime, the workers of Grikafa are more than willing to share their resources with one another. This necessity for dependency on others has strengthened trust within the community.

However, mining is dangerous and risky work. Accidents happen,but work needs to continue. One morning, after an particularly devastating cave-in, the company held a lottery to draft several townsfolk into the labor force. Among the chosen were the kindly village sheriff, the misanthropic village doctor, and the rebellious teenage daughter of the local general store. These three unlikely heroes will stumble upon a buried secret which will change the fate of the village, as well as their own lives, forever.

Believe it or not, but hiding a young woman on a vessel full of sailors all barely capable of completing their own ship duties is easier than it sounds. Leon continues to protect Isae, as more and more sailors continue to fail recognizing her as anything less than the captain’s cabin boy they forgot was on board to start with. At least one of the crew is too concerned with the contraband he smuggled out of the Degrading Lands to care.

Erstwhile, two new sailors find a place and purpose aboard the ship. Quessy and Garou, two refugees recovered from the Degrading Lands, assume their duties with grand vigor. Quessy, an enternainer. Garou, moving man sized barrels over each shoulder. The Degrading Lands were indeed kind to the Duquetimme.

There’s a new ship on the horizon. This one, however, waves a neutral, foreign flag: a trade vessel of the distant desert land of Xexoria seeks a meeting at sea . . .

As the sun rises on the village of Grikafa, so does a new leader to a position of power. Agnes Mikhail finds strange men in red suspenders knocking on her front door, and when she lets them in, she finds them led by a man known only as Hassim. He asks for a number of foodstuffs and her store’s only hunting rifle. She resists, stating that none of this makes any sense right now, but Hassim claims that they will need to share all of their resources and eventually parts with the food and weapon.

Agnes leaves her house in frustration, walking around the shoreline and throwing rocks to alleviate her rage at this man who barged into her house and took her things, claiming that they will be needed by the rest of the town. After tossing the first stone, a strange sight on the other shore catches her eye. A group of men, armed with clubs and guns, stand ready with barges. As they begin yelling demands across the river, Agnes realizes her life is going to be much less simple from now on.

After much trading and intrigue with the Xexorian vessel and the Sultan they met, the crew is working to avoid the massive storm coming their way. They begin to sail due south, even further off course.

Meanwhile life on the ship slowly settles back into routine, with all of the crew dealing with minor problems that have cropped up. Edouard drafts a new ship’s cook assistant, Yaeger fails miserably at sneaking into a locked room, and Leon, on his way to visit the Captain, finds Isae’s previous ‘suitor’ attempting to engage in lewd behavior. Leon attempts to show the man the error of his ways.

Unfortunately, knife fights in the middle of the ship about a woman don’t tend to go over well with authority. Needless to say, tensions on board are high, and are only going to get worse.